KARACHI: Foreign exchange reserves held by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) rose by $30 million to $4.46 billion in the week ending on April 20.
SBP in a statement said that its reserves have increased by $30 million to $4.46 billion as of April 20, which will provide an import cover of less than a month. However, the central bank did not specify the reason behind the increase in foreign exchange reserves.
Meanwhile, the net foreign reserves held by commercial banks stand at $5.56 billion, $1.1 billion more than the SBP, taking the total liquid foreign reserves to $10.02 billion.
Earlier on April 20, the SBP foreign exchange reserves increased to $4.43 billion after receiving Rs300 million commercial loan from China.
The SBP spokesperson confirmed that $300 million commercial loan from China was received and $384 million was increased to the central bank’s reserves. The total reserves of the SBP increased to $4.43 billion from $4.03 billion.
On April 21, it was reported that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) asked Pakistan to ‘do more’ to unlock stalled loan programme despite the assurances from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates about external funds.
The meeting of Finance Secretary Hamid Yakoob in the US remained ‘unfruitful’ with the International Monetary Fund as the international lender has asked to arrange $1 billion from commercial banks to unlock the loan programme.
The staff-level agreement was supposed to be signed on February 9 but had been delayed after then over IMF’s demands.
